Saturday, December 8, 2007

http://sandradodd.com/wonderI lifted a photo and song list from the lyrics game, when the word was "wonder," and added it to the page on "wonder." (lower right—Sadie as Wonder Woman, Kirby as a dog dressed as a banana)

http://sandradodd.com/worldTwo pages have been combined and redirected to one new page. They used to be "/local" and "/unschoolingotherwise." If you have either of those linked on your own sites, you don't have to change anything! The redirect is quick and quiet.

I've been thinking about "topic chats" again for a while, and this might work. I'm thinking of having a topic each week, and anyone can come by and add links, suggestions, trivia or personal stories here: http://thinkingsticks.blogspot.com/

Marty suggested we could use thinking sticks sometimes—throw two topics and run connections. I think we might try to connect everything to whatever item, movie, story, or concept that's used. I couldn't get the blog names that would make the simplest sense, so I went with "thinking sticks." There will be links to this on my unschooling page and my blog, in case you can't remember where it is.

If it flies, it will be fun, and if it flops no problem. I think it could help people understand unschooling better and enrich their homes if they're lagging. Kind of like strewing for the parents, maybe.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tuesday night, December 11, I'm scheduled to be on The Alan Colmes Show, a syndicated radio talk show out of New York, on Fox Radio. it's 11:00 eastern time, 9:00 Mountain time. There will be someone to refute me (person not yet chosen), and after an exchange (with Alan Colmes moderating) of at least 20 minutes, they'll start taking callers. I won't be on the phone over an hour, I'm told, and they'll keep taking callers after they disconnect from the guests. Three hours altogether, the show lasts.

I don't know how it will go, but I don't see that it can be worse than the Unschooling Discussion list or the forum at unschooling.info. I'll write about it the next day (December 12) here: http://sandradodd.blogspot.com

The associate producer who's my contact wrote:

Unfortunately we don't have an Albuquerque station. We're on about 85stations across the country. All hope is not lost, though. People canlisten live on www.alancolmesradio.com or thru Sirius 145 or XM 168.

Monday, November 26, 2007

A video by Andrew and some friends, in Maryland, showing a comparison between some aspects of life between schooled and homeschooled kids has been added to the benefits of unschooling teens page:http://sandradodd.com/teen/benefits

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

"There's more to unschooling than just not doing school. To make it flourish we need to look at ourselves, our relationship, the way we look at the world in a new way to clear out the thinking that's holding us back." -Joyce Fetteroll

Although my blog isn't really part of the SandraDodd.com site, there are some comments and photos of Marty at the "non con" in Oregon recently in the top entry (or something around November 15, if you're reading this later).http://sandradodd.blogspot.com

Monday, November 12, 2007

Two videos, each with a story, both worth a look. One is on autonomous learning (what "unschooling" is generally called in the U.K.) and one of Elimar Clemens Buschmann, a juggler, and the father of Robyn Coburn who is featured on my site.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Halloween used to be more fun when all the homeschoolers were in one discussion pool. After shunning psychology for years, some of Halloween's detractors have adopted it (an outdated form), and plan to condition their children to think about Jesus (and other Biblical figures) when they eat certain candy and see jack-o-lanterns.http://sandradodd.com/halloweenWait... only click that link if your kids' Halloween costumes are ready, because you might be in there a while.

I've updated the speaking page (conferences) some. It was also one of the first few pages I ever made, and I know more now.http://sandradodd.com/speakingIt's not pretty, but it's more for reference than reading. Mostly it's my own record of where I've spoken. I have a scrap book, kind of, where I keep my speaker's badge and the program, but it filled up and now it's a notebook and a little pile.

Cartoons! Defense of kids watching cartoons, a page I don't guess I had ever announced. It wasn't linked anywhere, and was sitting there with a big formatting error. So I added to it, spruced it up, and here it is, with illustrations and its own linkshttp://sandradodd.com/t/cartoonsThat "t" in the middle is for tv. When I first started my site I didn't know at all what I was doing. Now I kinda know what I'm doing, but the old urls are still sometimes mysterious. If you forget how to get there in the future, go to sandradodd.com/tv and you should be able to find it again.

Creating webpages this way is like making quilts from materials other people have donated, but each scrap has life-changing power and sparkle. THANK YOU to those who write these wonderful bits, and to those who send them to me and say "Use this one!"

Real children's lives are made better all over the world when their parents can relax and smile and say "okay, let's do that!"

Thursday, October 18, 2007

To those using Internet Explorer, this will mean little to nothing, but I have a note at the end...

I've changed favicons for the unschooling pages. There used to be a little duck. Now there's a tree—the smallest of the four trees Bo made for me. That's what should show to the left of the URL in the address box on a browser. Eventually the SCA pages will all have the duck.

I lost the background on the unschooling page while dinking around with this change. I deleted my backgrounds folder. That's probably a good thing. That background was left over from when my unschooling page was on expage.com and they counted the characters and the fanciest art I could have was this:

I have read (yesterday) that if one on Internet Explorer saves a link to a site, the favicon will show. I read it on the internet, so it must be true. (eeep)

I like those trees Bo made me. They're to represent me and my three children, and I like the symbolism of big strong trees that grow from such small seeds.

And I fixed it so that the new tree art replaces the old tree art on the error and search pageshttp://sandradodd.com/searchIf you use my search boxes you should get the four trees Bo King made me, instead of the one tree on a book I used to use, which only appears now (I hope) athttp://sandradodd.com/bookmotif

Friday, October 5, 2007

Halloween isn't spread equally over the English-speaking world, but if Halloween worries are applicable to your family, here are collected comments concerning Halloween candy and how a family might handle it:

There's nothing new there right now, but I'm willing to add accounts of successes with loosening up, and if anyone has photos of Halloween costumes or candy or parties that don't have a home on the web, I'm willing to host those too. We can have a happy Halloween page for others to see in years to come.

There are some photos of Holly in Minneapolis (and Kelly Traaseth's daughters Abbi and Kyra) here, and more will be up to see within a few days:http://sandradodd.blogspot.com (posts in early October, 2007--for those who see this later)

There's Holly with Paul Bunyon, and not the real Paul Bunyon, we understand. This is some kind of department-store Paul Bunyon for the kids, but the real Paul Bunyon is in Bemidji and we'll see him later.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Bo King, a young adult friend of our family, has done new art work for the unschooling section of the website. We need to tweak it a bit to put it on the main unschooling page, and Holly and I are in Minnesota for a week, but it's in a couple of places now, in two forms:http://sandradodd.comhttp://sandradodd.com/whateveryouenter (404 error page)

I requested a tree with three baby dancing trees, artistically kinda like The Flame in the Animaniacs cartoon about the Declaration of Indepence and Sideshow Bob's hair, and look how well he did it.

American postage rates and policies changed recently, and it's made it harder and more expensive for me to mail books, so I raised the shipping rates closer to the new rates. Canada's is worst. Sorry. I'm hoping it won't need to be changed for a long time now, though. http://sandradodd.com/bookorder

Thursday, September 6, 2007

For those who would prefer a checklist-style directory, here it is:http://sandradodd.com/contentsMaybe you can read my whole website after all! (Nah, not really—but you might feel a greater sense of a accomplishment if you print it out and check things off, if you like that sort of thing...)

If you think you've missed some new pages, check back in this blog!

The ordering page for Moving a Puddle has been amended. The price is up a bit on every category of shipping. I was collecting $4 and spending $4.60 for the stamp. http://sandradodd.com/bookorder

There are a few new things on the anti-TV page (yeah, I have an anti-TV page—a gallery of illogic and booga-booga, including now a new one that says TV triggers autism). The additions are the box on the right halfway down, and the three images, lower left (which lead to outside sites). http://sandradodd.com/t/anti

I spent most of the afternoon sifting through my site changing all the "Peaceful Parenting" to the phrase "Parenting Peacefully." Unfortunately and inexplicably, someone has trademarked the term "Peaceful Parenting," and has threatened to make me pay legal fees because I didn't roll and say "sorry" the first time she told me I couldn't use those two words together anymore. Interesting, huh? I guess if I'm giving it away she can't make as much money trying to sell it.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

http://sandradodd.com/panelA follow-up of the Unschooling panel from the HSC conference in Sacramento, California a week and a half ago. If anyone has photos I'd love to use a couple from that day. I saw some cameras being used!

Perhaps I have mentioned how much I love the internet. I just adore the opportunity to share photos and music and ideas with people around the world, so quickly, without having to dress up or leave home. Thanks for being part of my fun internet experience.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Susan, on UnschoolingBasics reported very clearly a day on which she
changed, and her perspective changed.http://sandradodd.com/change (fourth thing down, I think)

Attitude and Unschoolinghttp://sandradodd.com/attitude
This is another of those pages I made and forgot about, and didn't
link to my main page (I have now), so I added the third column of
links (including "change," the one above this one) and ta-daa!

Subjectshttp://sandradodd.com/subjects
The page isn't new, but some of the links had been put in blank, on
speculation and hope I would eventually create them all. They've
existed for a while, but I had forgotten to go and fill in the
blanks. All workable now!

Respect (and kids who are aggressive and seem difficult)http://sandradodd.com/robyn/respect
I've added some very wise advice Robyn Coburn gave to a mom who said
her five-year-old son was becoming "aggressive and mean."

Monday, June 11, 2007

Connections, and The Day the Universe Changed,both James Burke series largely about the history of science, and how one development leads to another...Jocelyn Vilter found much online information and links to YouTube videos.I've put the links here:http://sandradodd.com/connections, in the box on the right.

This is not the one that's at the link above; this is the one I made for MySpace, after Holly showed me how to do it. You can make one too (you can make several; I also have one at http://sandradodd.com/strew/simpsons)

You can make your own, or look through other people's, at ProjectPlaylist.com (or click "create a playlist" on anyone else's player).

Thursday, June 7, 2007

A report by Kerryn in Australia, and a good quote from Pam Sorooshian:"As we get older and our kids grow up, we eventually come to realize that all the big things in our lives are really the direct result of how we've handled all the little things." http://sandradodd.com/change

"A Mom's-Eye View of Driver's Ed" written when Holly became a driver, with photos of Kirby, Marty, Holly and of Brett Henry's first truck.http://sandradodd.com/driversed

Two things have been added at the bottom of this page, about what people want to know and why. (Hard to describe briefly, but worth a read!)http://sandradodd.com/research

Monday, June 4, 2007

Today's links both involve sound and video, so with apologies to anyone with a dial-up connection, here's the news:

Powers of Ten videos, four of them:http://sandradodd.com/m/tenHear Japanese and Catalan while you're traveling through theoretical space and theoretical-sub-atomic-land.

"When I was a Lad" from H.M.S. PinaforeBecause the Pinky and the Brain parody is based on it, and because I couldn't find a page that had words and music together, nor a set of lyrics formatted to my satisfaction, I made my own page:

Maybe I never announced my Elvis page. It could use some more links. Anyone here have a favorite Elvis link or want to hunt one up? I added something to the "How Elvis Appears to Unschoolers" page too.

So far, it includes The Battle of New Orleans (Johnny Horton)We Didn't Start the Fire (Billy Joel)American Pie (Don McLean)Abraham, Martin & John (Dion)The Meticulous Analysis of History (Pinky and the Brain)

Last week when I was super-busy with other things anyway, I got a letter (left on the wrong house, but I got it) from the State of New Mexico department of Children Youth and Families. You might imagine how thrilled I was not. I figured I was finally going to be called on to defend my homeschooling or something along those lines. It was something completely different, though, and I documented it here:http://sandradodd.blogspot.com/2007/05/control-and-jealous- craziness.html

Although it's not at all a classic unschooling essay or anything, I think there are things there to make one consider the benefits of living a life of open trustfulness (or of fearful negativity, but why spread it around more than necessary?).

Friday, May 18, 2007

Deb Lewis wrote something great on a list I'm not on. Kelly Lovejoy forwarded it to me, and it needed a home. I went to name a file "limits" and found I already had one, with a good bit from Deb Cunefare I had saved but not formatted. I guess I knew someday I'd come back there and fix it up. Today is that day.

I wrote an introduction, threw in five reasonable links.

Pam Sorooshian's daughter, Rose, discovered one day that she could guess URL extensions for my site and lots of them were there. That's been my plan for a while. You might try it, and if you find there's a perfect keyword that's not opening a page, send me a note and I might make a redirect page to the closest existing page, or a directory page, or just build the page.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

"if there is junk in the house my 3 yo will eat that and nothing else if i let him"

Another edition to the "If I let him..." page. I am attracted and repulsed by that page, but I think it's important to have. It's here:http://sandradodd.com/ifilet

If you've never seen it, you might want to start from the bottom.If you haven't seen it for a while, maybe read it with your own family's improvements in mind. Many of the parents who wrote those things went on to change, and their children very wonderfully proved them wrong.

http://sandradodd.com/helpThis page for people curious or new to unschooling might be a good one to pass on to people who inquire, who are considering it for next year, etc. It has links to other unschooling sites, lists, podcasts, recent news articles, local contacts, the flickr photo pool, Typical Days posts, blogs, and Unschooling Voices.

And it's possible it's a page some of you didn't know about. I keep finding pages I had forgotten about. I don't mind, as long as the links are still good.

I added two links to sandradodd.com/unschooling (my main page). Neither page is new, but they hadn't been put in the alphabetical listing on the main page.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

This page isn't new, but I had failed to link it from my main unschooling page, so I wanted to make sure people were aware of it. It has links to various Ren Allen items and her blog and unschooling pages.

As usual, I make pages or add to them and forget to tell people, but I have two:

http://sandradodd.com/marty/thatmartyStarted off about the good job Marty did as MC of the talent show at Mary Gold's recent conference, and expanded a bit. And because of that (indirectly) I got another testimonial for the page about what about kids looking at internet porn (vaguely it's about that, mostly it's about... you know, the whole trusting kids thing): http://sandradodd.com/sex (down under the Marty story, I think the second item there is new, and the whole page might be new to some of you).

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Holly made this with photos Marty took, sitting in a sculpture of broken carts Marty made (behind the store where he was working). I'm putting it here partly because I like it and it shows some of the things they do for fun, but partly to see if this blog format will accept wider images than the old one.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Each month for the past ten years, The Natural Child Project has named a resource of the month. Beginning tomorrow, my unschooling pages will be featured. The first resource named was La Leche League, in April 1997. Last year Rue Kream's book was featured in February, and Joyce Fetteroll was "Miss October" (as it were ). Last year the AlwaysUnschooled list and the magazine Live Free Learn Free were also featured. It was a big year for unschooling! I find myself in excellent company, and am glad Jan Hunt likes my site enough to share it out with her readers. Most of her letter is below. I don't know when her review will be up, but I'll put a link here when it is: http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Some new photos and clarifications on the Morning Glories page, a page that's brought in a couple of readers who were looking for morning glory information and found unschooling and other things.http://sandradodd.com/morningglories

I wasn't going to announce this page, as it's not original writing,nor about unschooling or the SCA.

Then I thought, all things being connected, that it might be justthe thing SOMEone needs this week, for some unknown reason, or itmight be something someone will need next week, so I might as wellput it out there.

Joyce found the poem a couple of years ago, and when I went today to find a text, I found slight variations, so I've tweaked this one to a matching set myself. If you find any errors, please let me know.